


Show Me Where It Hurts

by ilcuoreardendo



Series: Shaking the Bough: Tales from the D.C. Wasteland [3]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Coercion, Consent Issues, F/M, Gen, Sex, Sex Work, Sexual Content, Survival, Theft, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-11 01:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilcuoreardendo/pseuds/ilcuoreardendo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith, trying to find her father, makes a deal with Moriarty: an errand for information on James' whereabouts. But when that deal falls through, she'll have to come up with another means of getting the information she needs. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b> 5/21 - Chapter 3:</b>
  <br/>
  <i>Faith leaned her backpack against the underside of the desk and then stood in the middle of the room, resisting the urge to retreat or cross her arms defensively. “Terms?” she said.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“You a virgin, girl?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She blinked. “No.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for death, violence, a skeevy Moriarty, and Wasteland "the ends justifies the means" survival.

* * *

_Stand out on the edge of the earth_  
_Dive into the center of fate_  
_Walk right in the sight of a gun  
_ _Look into the new future's face_

~ “Edge of the Earth” – 30 Seconds to Mars

* * *

 

 

The little house just north of Megaton had looked almost quaint from the outside, despite the dilapidated roof and crumbling shutters. Inside, it was, Faith thought, just like everything else in this wasteland.

The woman's body—Silver, Faith figured, by the pale blond color of her hair—lay crumpled at the foot of the bed, a puppet whose strings had been cut. One of her hands curled loosely around the butt of a revolver. The other grasped at the ragged hole in the middle of her belly.

The sour tang of blood and cigarette smoke combined with the death room odor of urine and feces and flooded across the back of Faith's tongue, stung her eyes. She stumbled away from the body, crashing into a wooden armoire. Sinking to her haunches amid a shower of empty glass bottles, she covered her mouth with her hand and tried to swallow down the burn in her throat.

_She shouldn’t be here. What the hell did she think she was doing here?_

And then that bar owner's voice, with its rolling accent, slid through her head, insidious as a brain tumor. _Take care of Silver, get me my caps, and I’ll tell you where your da’s gone. Simple as that. And if you don’t? Well…it’s a mighty big Wasteland to be searchin’ through._

Faith shook her head. Took a shallow breath. She could do this. It was just a dead body. She’d seen dead bodies before.

_Even caused a few of them_ , whispered a voice in the back of her head.

With a quickly muttered apology, she went for the pockets of once-Silver’s softly tattered pants.  
  
No caps.

She turned to the footlocker, the dresser, the armoire and found nothing but whiskey bottles, inhalers, and a pack of bobby-pins.

“Damn it!” she hissed, kicking at an empty bottle. It slid into the kitchen crashed into the counter and shattered. The shards caught the last bit of light seeping through the boarded up window and sparkled quite prettily.  
  
Until a shadow fell across them.

Through the spaces on the boarded up window, Faith watched, stuck to the spot, as the shadow moved past the window.

Voices rumbled on the other side of the wall, indistinct. Her eyes went to the kitchen door. The handle rattled. The door swung inward, just as a gravelly voice said: “Can’t believe you didn’t fuckin’ loot the whole fuckin’ place while you was here— _Hey_!”

A bullet screamed by her head and Faith yelped, ducked, scrambled for the gun on her hip.

Putting on a burst of speed, she headed for the Red Rocket, crouched behind one of its legs. Bullets dinged off the metal. Too close. A scratchy, high pitched voice screamed things that she couldn’t understand.

Time seemed to slow as the toe of a boot came into view and Faith raised her eyes, raised her gun.

The woman pointed her shotgun at Faith’s head and smiled—a mirror image of once-Silver’s death grimace—even as Faith squeezed the trigger on her own gun and watched the side of the woman’s neck explode.

The woman collapsed to her knees, dropping the shot gun. Her wildly jerking hands tried to stem the blood pouring from the torn carotid. She opened her mouth, gurgled something unintelligible. Warm droplets of bloody spittle hit Faith’s cheeks, her nose and she cried out, jerking back, as the woman fell to the ground.

On the periphery of her vision, Faith could see the other one—a man, dressed in the same pieced together armor—running for her, firing his pistol into the air as if he were trying to scare off a wild animal. 

And like a wild animal, she turned and fled, head reeling.

She fell several times, picked herself up and kept pushing forward until she saw the metal spires of Megaton.

But the man was still behind her.  
  
Heat exploded across the side of her head. She stumbled again, fell into the dirt.

He was close enough she could hear the raggedness of his breath, feel him pointing the barrel of his gun at the back of her head and she squeezed her eyes closed, preparing for the bullet that would tear through her skull.

The shot rang out.

She opened her eyes, twisted her body, saw the man above her stumble back—an absurdly neat hole in his temple—fall and roll down the hill.

Her breath left her all at once and she collapsed on her back.

Above her, the darkening sky was rippling with stars and one of them was yelling.

“Simms! Shit goin’ down! Get the doc!”

 

**_#~#~#_ **

_Freddie liked it when she used her mouth on him. And, after a bit of coaxing, he’d been more than willing to return the favor._

_However, after getting caught once by Mr. Brotch who’d been polite and politic enough to ignore their half undone clothes as he sent them on their way, and nearly caught a week later by Allen Mack—who would have hauled them straight to the Overseer for marriage rites—they’d had to find a better place to meet than the storage room._

_Down in the bowels of the vault, in a little used area, where no one seemed to venture, inside a room that Faith had broken several bobby-pins to get into, on top of a musty old mattress that had probably been there for a hundred years, they had spent many stolen hours mapping each others bodies._

_Learning the taste of sweat and blood, come and tears._

_The night she’d pulled him onto her, into her—so ready to cast off the label of child—it had hurt. And she’d clung to his back as the burn sang through her, as he kissed the tears sliding from the sides of her eyes._

_“It always hurts,” he’d whispered later, when they lay tangled together, jumpsuits draped over them like blankets._

_“What?”_

_“New experiences,” he said, mouth against hers. “It’s how we know we’re learning. And growing.”_

_“What if…. I don’t know if I can take it,” she confessed._

_He nuzzled her cheek, pushed his nose against the curve of her neck, raised his lips to the shell of her ear—“You are the strongest person I know”—and bit down._  
  
She screamed.

“ _Calm down_! You wanna wake the whole town?”

Faith jerked away from the man gripping her arm, put her back to the wall and realized she was sitting up in a bed in a room that smelled of blood and antiseptic. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“Megaton. My clinic. Doc Church.”

She blinked at him and he sighed, scowling. “Simms dragged your ass in here. You jarred your ankle good and took a bullet graze to the ear. You’re lucky Stockholm’s a crack shot, otherwise you’d be sporting an even bigger hole in your head.”

“Stockholm?” she said, wincing as she brushed the bandage that held her right ear to her head, then yelping when Church smacked her hand away.

“The guard at the town entrance and don’t mess with that. Leave the bandage on until it scabs, unless you want to get an infection. In which case, don’t expect me to treat it.”

She stared at him for a heartbeat. The man had a face that looked like it would split in two if he tried to smile.

“You,” she said, suddenly very tired and annoyed and sick to death of just about everybody she’s met in the day she’s been out of the vault, “have the bedside manner of a mortician.”

“I’ve been told. Now get dressed and get out of my clinic.”

**_#~#~#_ **

“Ah, so there’s the wee vault girl.” The bar owner, Moriarty, stepped away from the shelves at the rear of the bar, tapping his pencil against the clipboard in his hands and looked her over, slowly, head to toe and back again. “Ye get into a scrape, vault girl?”

“Was more than a scrape…” she muttered, limping toward the end of the bar and sliding onto a stool. She met Moriarty’s eyes, looked away. It was hard to hold his gaze. She examined the half full glass of piss yellow liquid Gob sat in front of a man at the other end, caught Gob's eye for a moment. The ghoul gave a sympathetic tilt of his head before scurrying back to his rounds. “Somebody," Faith said, "already… _took care_ of Silver.”

“One good turn,” Moriarty said. “But that does present us with a problem, doesn’t it? ‘Cause I’m bettin’ whoever sent Silver to that great big whorin’ ground in the sky also made off with the caps you were supposed to deliver.”

Faith bit the inside of her cheek, stared at a shiny, weathered spot on the wood in front of her.

She heard Moriarty sigh—a soft hum of breath—and he came around the bar, pulled himself up onto the stool next to her.

A tumbler of whiskey appeared at her wrist.

“Drink that, girl,” Moriarty said, tossing back his own whiskey.

She stared at it for a moment, shrugged and threw it back, just like she had the night she and Butch got into a contest of dares. It burned all the way down and she closed her eyes, savoring the feeling, gave a little shudder.

When she opened her eyes, Moriarty was staring at her, head every-so-slightly cocked. The look on his face was familiar. A distant cousin to the half rabid look she used to see on Wally Mack’s face; less malice, more hunger.

It made something low in her belly tighten, sent a rush of warmth up toward her face.

She looked away, only glancing at him when he filled her glass a second time; she enjoyed the milder rush of heat, the feel of her muscles relaxing.

Warm breath stirred her hair. He was closer now, violating her space. Something tickled against the arm she rested on the bar and she looked down, saw the very tip of his forefinger trace slowly over the little jutting bone of her wrist.

“While I’m disappointed in the loss of the caps,” he said, voice low and deeper than before, “there may be some other agreement that you and I can come to. What do you say?”

His words were smooth, intrusive, revolting.

And she considered them.

For a half second longer than she should have.

Then she threw back the third shot he’d poured into her glass, grimacing as it burned her throat, then looked Moriarty in the eye, rose and walked out of the bar.

tbc....


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith tries her hand at survival and learns some things along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it took me so long (a year, yikes!) to get this part up. I blame grad school. 
> 
> On the plus side, I do have the 3rd chapter drafted. On the negative side, I need to rework it a bit in places. On the plus side, the semester's almost over and I will have more time for writing in a couple of weeks. 
> 
> Like what you read, send me a kudos or comments (I like both, though comments are often extra sweet because they're so rare). 
> 
> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr where I post a variety of fandom related things: [ilcuoreardendo-fic](http://ilcuoreardendo-fic.tumblr.com/ilcuoreardendo-fic)

****

* * *

 

 _When I was a child I had a fever_  
_My hands felt just like two balloons._  
_Now I've got that feeling once again_  
_I can't explain you would not understand_  
_This is not how I am._  
_I have become comfortably numb._

“Comfortably Numb” – Collide (Pink Floyd, orig.)

* * *

 

****

****

Once upon a time, on a dare from Butch, Faith had swiped a bottle of 100 year old whiskey from the Overseer’s cabinet. The headache she had the next morning was no match for the one she had now.

“You’re in my bed!”

The voice, high and grating and sounding vaguely insulted, had jolted her out of the light doze she’d managed to find as night turned toward morning. The couch in front of the Common House wasn’t much good for sleeping, but it had been the only available spot. And apparently it was previously claimed.

“What?” Faith blinked. A tin can hit the wall behind her head, pinged off into the pre-dawn gloom.

“My bed! You’re in my bed. Get outta my bed!” The man lunged toward her and Faith shrieked, dived off the couch. She had just enough presence of mind to pull the threadbare blanket (liberated from one of the broken down lockers in the Common House) with her.

Grumbling about thieves and “what’s this world coming to?” the old man snuggled down into the couch, turning on his side, pressing his face against the back cushions.

Faith hoped he’d breathe in a piece of loose stuffing and choke.

The sun was barely above the horizon, there was a chill in the air, and few people were just beginning to stir.

She headed toward Craterside Supply and there, after a cautious look around, folded her blanket as small as it would go and tucked it carefully between the coils on the back of the old refrigerator, hoping no one would find it.

**# # #**

A half hour later, after a perfunctory wash in the spray of a leaking pipe (mostly she'd just rinsed the dirt off her face), Faith stood outside the Brass Lantern, watching the blonde woman—Jenny, she’d heard her addressed—who ran the place, sit a bowl of stew in front of Doc Church

There were several plates of kabobs, hot off the grill, on the end of the counter. Faith contemplated the likelihood of snatching one when no one was looking, at which point her stomach decided to announce its presence with a long, loud growl.

Maybe Jenny heard it, or maybe she felt Faith’s eyes on her, but she looked at Faith, gestured to her to come close and pushed forward a small plate with a kabob and a lump of Dandy Boy apples on it. She glanced around, put her fingers to her lips, smiled.

Faith mouthed a “thank you” and took the plate, stepping around the corner, out of sight, to eat.  
  
She ate as slowly as she could, but the food still vanished alarmingly fast and she sighed as she scraped the last apple from her plate, licked cinnamon sauce from her fingertips. She wasn’t full, but she was sated.

For the moment.

Leaning back against the building, she looked over the town. Moriarty’s was _out_. She could talk to the woman in Craterside Supply…what _was_ her name? Then her eye caught on a man in a blue jump suit passing by. The old man she’d seen yesterday, fixing the hinges on the door to Moriarty’s Saloon. Maybe he could point her in some direction. Leaving her plate on the counter, with one last thankful look at Jenny, she took off after him.

**# # #**

“Damn it!” Tears sprang to Faith’s eyes as she rubbed a sliver of soap across the wound on her arm, a souvenir from fixing up the leaks in the town’s water system. Walter (blue jumpsuit guy) had seemed impressed enough with her “vault-fixin’” credentials (thank you, Stanley) to send her out on her own hunting down the leaks.  
  
It had taken a few more hours than she’d thought, but she’d fixed them all. That last one had proved hard to get to and involved some pipe climbing. The pipes had been wet and when she’d turned to get down, she’d slipped, catching her arm on a jagged strip of metal and banging her head pretty good. It was a miracle she hadn’t fallen off and broken her leg.

Inside the broken room that passed for a bathroom (she'd been surprised to find one), between the web-like cracks across the glass over the sink, she eyed the red and purple scrape at her hairline. It wasn’t too deep. A little wash and it should be fine. Same with her arm, so long as she could keep it relatively clean….she thought, suddenly thankful for the vault's vaccination schedule and her relatively recent tetanus shot. She finished washing, wrapped the length of fabric she’d torn off the bottom of her undershirt around her arm, tied it with the help of her teeth. It would hold.

The door to the bathroom squeaked open and a woman’s face came and went from the mirror. Nova, on a break, maybe, from Moriarty’s. She moved past Faith and toward the bathtub, plopping a small bag down on the rickety looking table that stood next to it.

“Hey, sweetie. Rough day?” Nova greeted her like they were old friends or at least old acquaintances; her voice was low, smooth, teasing. Pulling off her boots and her torn stockings, she set them neatly in a pile next to her bag, then put the plug in the tub, turned on the water. “Heard Walter had you fixing the plumbing. Great job on that. The pressure was shit.” Thumbing the buttons on her clothes, she continued. “Mine was rough. Damn mercs.” She let her clothes fall to the floor.

Faith turned her head.

Nova chuckled as she pulled a cake of amber soap from her bag and stepped into the tub. “So shy. That won’t last long. Out here, sweetie, privacy’s a luxury most of us don’t have the caps for.”

“It was the same in the vault,” Faith murmured and turned around again, folding her arms as she leaned against the sink.

“Mm.” Nova, sitting hip deep in the water, turned off the tap, drew the bar of soap over her arms and chest. There was a suck mark on her right breast, another on her jaw line, and what looked like the imprint of teeth on her shoulder.

“How do you do it, Nova?”

“Hm?” she said, scrubbing between her toes. “Well, first, you get the Johnny nice and hard…”

“No!” Faith laughed in spite of the pain in her arm, the ache in her back, the burn of her ear. “How do you put up with it all? How do you let them touch you?”

Nova rinsed, stepped out of the tub, popped the plug and dried off with a small towel that had seen better days. “It’s not so bad. Really. Most of the guys, they’re harmless, looking for a sweet voice and a soft body so they can forget the shit hole that’s their life. And they’ll pay you to get it.”  
  
“You can’t tell me they don’t ever….”

“Get rough? Sure, some do. From the whiskey, the strain. You learn how to deal with ‘em. How to talk ‘em down. If nothing else, I can shout for Colin and he’ll throw ‘em out. Banged up merchandise is no good.”

“So he watches out for you?”

“No. He watches out for his investments.” Nova pulled her clothes on, piece by piece, making sure each scrap of fabric settled just right. Faith thought of soldiers pulling on armor. “But I’ll tell you, as far as offers go, kid, Colin’s one of the better ones. Trust me.”

Nova gave her a knowing look and turned, rummaged in her bag once more, came up with several shiny foil packages that she pressed into Faith’s hand. “It’s rough out there. There’s no shame in making a place for yourself until you get your head on right.”

Then she was gone in a puff of sweet air laced with the lingering scent of cigarette smoke, leaving Faith staring down at her palm and the red and blue squares with the words JIMMY HATS emblazoned across the packaging.

Shaking her head, Faith tucked them into the inner pocket of her vault suit and left the bathroom, headed for the water processing plant to pick up her pay. 

**_# # #_ **

100 caps, Faith discovered, didn’t go very far.

Moira had been nice enough to throw in a few things for free (a small, worn backpack, a sun-bleached storm chaser hat that had seen better days) when Faith had come in for supplies. All in all, the money had bought her some more ammo for her gun, a few tins of food and two bottles of purified water that she tucked away into her new-used backpack. The few caps she had left over, she stowed in the inside pocket of her jumpsuit.

Faith spent the heat of the late afternoon in the shade of one of the many catwalks, new hat blocking the brightness of the sun, though occasionally irritating the bandage on her ear.  Her backpack at her feet, she took small sips from her water and watched the ebb and flow of the townspeople.

There were three types, Faith came to think. Permanent residents who had shops or homes (or both) in the town, traders who’d come in for the day to peddle their wares and then there were those, like her, who had nowhere else to go, who got swept into the town by the scalding breeze. The town was overflowing with them. The common house was full, the extra rooms rented by those lucky enough to have the money. The rest of the refuse hunkered down where they could and were removed if they caused a ruckus or became too much of a drain on the town. 

At least some of them were, Faith thought, catching sight of the loud preacher next to the bomb. She hadn't figured out what his deal was. What exactly did he offer?

Faith, at least, had fixed the pipes. That would by her some time. Walter might even throw additional work her way—already had by offering to pay her for scrap metal she'd found—but she was going to have to do something to secure a more permanent residence...well, if she intended to stay. 

Above her, the catwalk creaked. Sand from dirty shoes fell through the slats, caught on the rim of her hat. Tired voices filtered down to her, people done with their work for the day, or taking a break, heading for The Brass Lantern for their evening meal or to Moriarty's to drink away the memory of the day, the month, their life.

Faith couldn't say she blamed them. A drink sounded like a very good idea. Too bad she didn't have the caps for it. Somewhere in the back of her head, she could hear her father's voice, soft and stern, lecturing her for the thought. James hadn't been a teetotaler, but he'd always stressed that alcohol was not the answer to any problem.

“Don't know, dad” she said aloud to herself as she watched the flickering lights of the saloon, “I think you might prefer alcohol to some of the other answers out here….”

**# # #**

Evening came on. The town lit up, small colorful lights beckoning to the hungry, the weary, the horny. Faith heard the chatter as she headed down the catwalk past Moriarty's, drunken laughter and the clink of glasses. From upstairs, she could hear a woman's exaggerated moans and a man's mewling cry that ended in an abrupt grunt.

She rounded the corner of the building, stepped off the catwalk into the soft dirt and caught a puff of cooler, beer scented air. The back door to the saloon stood propped open, letting in the evening breeze. Just beyond the door, a computer monitor hummed brightly, lock screen glowing green in the dimness.

A furtive glance around revealed she was alone and Faith slipped toward the open door, leaning against the exterior wall and letting her head loll against the doorframe until she could see inside the room. From this angle, she could just make out the inside door that led into the bar, saw Gob's back as he took money and handed out drinks, heard the chatter of people.  
  
She looked at the computer monitor, looked at the interior door, then back to the monitor. She was just about to take a step inside when a shadow fell into the room and she jerked back, banging her head against the doorframe and silently cursing at the noise. Luckily the person in the room was busy rifling through cabinets and banging open doors and shouting to Gob, “Where in the shuffling hell did you put that order receipt from Doc Hoff?” and muttering “Fecking zombie” under his breath.

Moriarty. Faith let out a breath and edged close to the door again as she heard him make a noise of exclamation. Peering around the door once more she watched him log in to the computer, craned her neck and noted the movement of his fingers on the keyboard as he pecked out the keys to his password. Then she turned and slipped away as quietly as she could, pondering how she could get to that computer, hoping Moriarty was the type of man she pegged him for, the type who kept records.

Come midnight, Faith lay awake on the couch outside the Common House, the old man who'd screamed at her about it being his bed long since gone. The fitful doze she'd gotten had been abruptly ended by a spring that was beginning to poke through the cushion and into her hip, by the drop of the temperature and a cool, dry breeze that slipped through the threadbare blanket and her jumpsuit. The space behind her eyes hurt, her ear ached dully and even her crotch gave a curious throb.

Across the town, the Moriarty's Saloon sign was still lit and people trickled in and out of the front door. Inside would be noisy and bright, but comfortable from the press of bodies warmed by liquor and bawdy laughter.  
  
Before she could second-guess herself, she stood, stuffing her blanket into her backpack and, shouldering it, headed toward the lights.

She slipped into the saloon behind a couple of men who look like they'd just stumbled into town. Nova was nowhere to be seen. Probably upstairs with a customer, Faith thought with a hint of distaste on the back of her tongue. And she shook her head, thinking _You going to apply that distaste to yourself too?_

Gob was filling drinks at the bar; he hadn’t even glanced her way.

And Moriarty was heading toward the stairs. He raised an eyebrow when he saw her.  
  
“Well, now. By the way you rushed out of here earlier, you had me thinkin’ our dealings were done.”  
  
“You caught me off guard,” she said.  It was the truth.

“You ready to discuss terms, then?”

She swallowed and wet her lips. She watched the way he watched her tongue, and felt something settle inside her. Raising her head and squaring her shoulders, she said, “Lead the way.”

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith runs her own racket and gets one step closer to finding her father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though I'm not entirely certain I like how this last part came out....I've poked at it enough to know that it's not going to be any shinier any time soon, so here it is.

* * *

_When I was a child_  
_I caught a fleeting glimpse_  
_Out of the corner of my eye_  
_I turned to look but it was gone_  
_I cannot put my finger on it now_  
_The child is grown_  
_The dream is gone_  
_I have become comfortably num_ b.

“Comfortably Numb” – Collide (Pink Floyd, orig.)

 

* * *

 

 

Moriarty's bedroom was just as stark and sparse as the other rooms Faith had seen since coming out of the vault, consisting of a wardrobe in one corner, a desk shoved against the wall next to it and on the far wall, a beat up metal frame with a dingy mattress covered with an equally dingy sheet and a colorful quilt that looked shiny, new and out of place. The room smelled like stale air, the faint sharpness of whiskey, the lingering hint of cigarettes and something faint and musky, unidentifiable.

Shutting the door, Moriarty moved to his bed, dropping his leather vest on the desk chair as he went, leaving him only in his white t-shirt and pants. He sat heavily on the bed and pulled off his shoes.

Faith leaned her backpack against the underside of the desk and then stood in the middle of the room, resisting the urge to retreat or cross her arms defensively. “Terms?” she said.

“You a virgin, girl?”

She blinked. “ _No_.”  
  
What looked like disappointment flashed in Moriarty's eyes but he gave a little shrug and then a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “That's all right. Don't have to be too gentle then, do I?”

Faith frowned. “I want to be able to walk out of here in the morning.”

That set off a riot of laughter. “Oh, you'll walk. Might not be too comfortable, but you'll walk. An' speaking of, I do expect you to stay all night. I like to partake, sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, after a sleep.”

“Fine,” Faith said. “But just tonight. This is a one-time thing.”  
  
“Agreed,” he said, voice low and easy and very much, she thought, humoring her. “Come here, then.”

“First, where did _he_ go?”

Moriarty shook his head. “No. Make good on your end, vault girl, and I'll tell you what you're wantin' to know.”

“And how do I know you'll uphold your end?”

A flash of teeth and Moriarty leaned back on the bed, settling on his elbows. “That's the deal, lass. Take it or leave it.”

She let the silence hang heavy for a moment and then stepped forward, unzipping her jump suit in a long, slow pull. “My name,” she said, “is Faith.”

 

The only man she'd ever been with had been a boy. Freddie Gomez, 16 and nervous and fumbling awkwardly at her body, fingers too hard and rough on her nipples, not firm enough on her ass, bypassing the sweet spot between her legs entirely, in a hurry to slide his fingers inside her before she was really wet and ready. The first few times she’d been left to get herself off afterward, as he lolled at her side watching, drowsy and curious.

Moriarty wasn't a boy, but the way he'd looked at her, and his comment about gentleness, had left her thinking he'd be just as eager as one. Just as likely to gloss over her pleasure, so anxious he was to get his cock somewhere warm and wet. So when the first thing he did, after she had followed his order to undress, was bear her down onto his bed and bury his face between her thighs, Faith's mind reeled.

The scratch of his whiskers against her soft inner thighs, the warmth of his breath on her, and the near whispered “Been wantin’ to know what this sweet cunny tastes like,” made heat curl in her belly, her heart beat faster. When his mouth touched her, she felt herself swell and grow wet before the world went fuzzy at the edges.

He might have stayed down there for minutes or hours by her account, but eventually the world came back into focus, extra sharp, as he moved his tongue just _so_ and sent her to orgasm with an embarrassingly loud moan of “Mmmm, _fuck_.”

She barely had time to enjoy the aftershocks before he was pulling her off the bed and pushing her to the floor on her knees. She'd expected this earlier; she was ready for it.

When he loosened his pants and pulled out his cock, she bent to touch her lips to the flushed head peeking out from beneath the soft foreskin. But he caught her by the jaw and angled her head up, forced her gaze to meet his. “I'm going to fuck your mouth,” he said, the words tumbling along her spine and sending shivers through her body. “And when I come, you're going to drink it down. Not a drop spilled, or there'll be hell to pay and I'll take it out on the hot, slick cunny of yours. Might even take it out on your pretty ass,” he murmured, almost to himself and Faith felt a thrill of panic shoot through her. He smiled, benevolent, toothy, false. “I still have you for the rest of the night. Keep that in mind.”

With those words, he tangled the hand that had been holding her jaw in her hair and used it to draw her down. With the other, he pumped himself twice, fitted the flushed head of his cock between her lips and pushed, pulling her onto him simultaneously, until all she could feel and smell was him, thick and hot in her mouth, the scratch of his wiry pubic hair against her lips, the sharp hint of his sweat, that unidentifiable musky odor she'd smelled when she'd first entered his room.

He held her there until she gasped for breath around him and then pulled her away, giving her just enough time to gasp for air before pushing into her mouth again. And then it started in earnest and she found she didn't have to do much more than keep her balance and let him move as he liked, sliding between her swollen lips, nearly gagging her on occasion and bringing tears to her eyes. She settled into the rhythm, into the scent of him and the dirty words that fell from his mouth, oddly musical in his accent and keeping her inexplicably wet and aroused. She imagined bringing herself off just by clenching her thighs together but dared not move for fear of losing her balance and biting him.

When he came it was with little warning, apart from a low grunt, and Faith swallowed convulsively as he poured thick and bitter into her mouth. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered how the wasteland treated STDs, vaguely hoped Moriarty wasn't carrying anything, decided to deal with it later.

He lifted her chin, ran his thumb across her lips, as though searching for any misplaced spurt of himself that he could call her on. Finding nothing, he pulled his thumb away, grumbled “Good girl” and flopped back onto the bed, cock tucked into his pants, but peeking out through the open fly. A few moments later his breathing had deepened into something that wasn't quite a snore.

 _Must be exhausting running such a racket on the town,_ Faith thought as she watched him sleep before rising and taking her discarded clothes and laying them out on the desk so they'd be ready for her. Her fingers hovered over the handle of one of the desk drawers and she glanced back to the bed. Moriarty had his face turned toward the wall. His chest rose and fell steadily. As smoothly as possible, she opened and shut each drawer, finding empty space, a few bobby pins, a _Guns and Bullets_ magazine that had seen better days and— _finally!—_ in the middle drawer, a small Brahmin hide bag that jingled when she poked it.

Shutting the drawer carefully, she moved to her backpack, plucking out the shiny foil packets Nova had given to her. She placed these on the squat bedside table, in easy reach for whenever Moriarty woke and then flicked off the overhead light.  
  
Checking the time on her Pipboy, she found it just shy of one o'clock in the morning. Downstairs, she could still hear the clatter of bottles, the murmur of voices. Last night, the saloon lights had gone dim around 2:00 and people had flowed out onto the catwalks. She hoped that was a sign of how things normally went. If it wasn't….

Faith shook her head. If it wasn't, she'd have to hope Moriarty was the kind of man who kept his word. “Hope in one hand,” she muttered under her breath, wrapping her arms around herself and listening to the sounds of the bar wafting up through the iron and wood. She heard Gob's strange and unique voice and wondered when he would head off to bed after closing. He'd clean up first, probably. Moriarty didn't seem the type to care about cleanliness but he _did_ seem the type to give Gob a hard time…. Faith estimated an hour for cleanup.

So, 3 a.m. If Moriarty woke before then, she'd take care of it. If he didn't…..she'd have to be _quick_. She wasn't sure what Megaton's penalty was for stealing or breaking and entering, and she didn't want to find out. As for Moriarty, she was pretty sure he'd just shoot her.

Setting the alarm on her Pipboy to vibrate at 2:45, she curled up on the free part of the mattress, closed her eyes and took a deep breathe. Her heart rate was still up and thinking about what she was about to do wasn’t helping. Neither were the thoughts about what might happen afterward. She’d get her dad’s whereabouts and then…what? She’d been out of the vault less than four days and she’d already been shot, lost the tip of her right ear, and resorted to prostitution.  If she was being realistic, the odds of her finding her dad were small compared to the odds of her dying horribly, either impaled on a piece of pre-war junk or shot—and maybe worse—by some drugged out Raider.

Behind her, Moriarty turned on his side, breath blowing warm against the nape of her neck, stirring the fine hairs there, tickling over her skin. There was something comforting about it, familiar. For a moment, she let herself consider the possibility of not doing anything. Of simply staying right where she was. She could deal with Moriarty. She could get more work out of Walter. Maybe Moira needed some errands done….

She quieted those thoughts with a deep inhale and exhale, doing the breathing exercise her father had taught her to use whenever she got too worked up over an assignment from Mr. Botch, or some stupid thing Butch had said, or any other number of grievances that had seemed so dire and important in her life before. She knew what she had to do ( _breath in_ ), what she wanted to do ( _breath out_ ), and she would see to it ( _breath in_ ). The texture of the mattress beneath her seemed to soften; the cool blanket grew smooth against her naked skin, her ears hummed with the quiet snores of the man next to her, the murmur of the people downstairs. Eventually, the sensations became white noise, lulling her to sleep. She didn’t dream.

 

  ** _#~#~#_**

 

Faith woke minutes before her alarm and switched it off. Moriarty snuffled into the back of her neck, stirring awake. The hand draped over her ribs rose to cup her breast, fingers grazing the tip of her nipple. Against the small of her back, she could feel his erection, parting the cloth of his pants, pressing hot and silky against her.

It was easy enough—a sleepy Moriarty seemed to be a complacent Moriarty—to guide him onto his back, slip one of the Jimmy Hats on him and climb on top. She was no virgin, but she wasn't exactly a Black Widow either; however, her body seemed to remember how this dance went and once she'd adjusted to the stretch of him, she began to move.

Unlike earlier, he seemed content to let her set the pace, resting his hands on the swell of her hips as she swayed and rocked, alternating between grinding her clit against his lower belly and rising and falling on his hips. The latter movements made him twitch and gasp and so she kept at it until he was swearing under his breath and digging his nails into her skin. Bringing the fingers of her right hand to her clit, she stroked herself as she moved, feeling her orgasm draw closer until it hit, almost unexpectedly. Moriarty swore as he twitched hard inside her, brought over by her climax.

A few breaths later, she levered herself down to the mattress. Moriarty slipped the condom off, tied it and handed it to her without comment. Scoffing softly, Faith rose and went to the small trash bin she'd seen in the corner of the room. Back on the bed, Moriarty had climbed under the quilt and turned to face the wall. That he put his back to her wasn't lost on Faith. He was comfortable, smug-sure that she wasn't going to draw a knife or a gun on him.  
  
Not that she was going to. And, honestly, his underestimating her made what she was doing so much easier. But it still rankled.

Her PipBoy read a quarter past three. Moving toward the door, she strained her ears but couldn't hear anything aside from the rush of blood through her body, the sound of her heart pumping, her shallow breathing.

No time like the present.  
  
With a silent swiftness born of sneaking out of the vault apartment late at night, Faith dressed in the dark, putting on everything but her boots. With a quick check of Moriarty, who looked like he was well on his way into a deep dream if the twitching of his body was any indication, Faith slid open the desk drawer, hesitated a moment, then carefully removed the satchel of caps, which she tucked into the bottom of her backpack.

Opening the bedroom door was a feat in itself as the hinges creaked and Moriarty twitched, muttering a half intelligible question.  
  
“I just need the bathroom,” Faith whispered, keeping her voice soft, steady, reassuring. “I'll be right back.” And she waited for him to still again before she pulled the door open just enough to slip through and shut it softly behind her.

The building was dim and there was no sound of footsteps or chatter. The doors on the upper floor were all closed. On the stairs, she moved slowly and kept close to the wall, peering into the main room as she descended. Gob was nowhere to be seen. Moving a little faster, she slipped past the bar and into the back room where Moriarty's computer waited.

Sitting in the chair, she closed her eyes, drew up the image of Moriarty sitting in front of his keyboard, fingers hunting and pecking for the right keys, recalled an “L” a “T,” and two “Ss” with four letters in between them. She was certain his password was a phrase. He struck her as meticulous. There’s no way he’d keep up with who owed him caps if he wasn’t. _Caps…hm._ Faith considered the arrangement of letters, typed out a phrase that seemed promising, if a little obvious, and breathed out a sigh coupled with laughter as the screen changed and gave her access to Moriarty’s files.

He had one everyone in town, it seemed. And….dad. She read the entry titled _James_ with a critical eye, heart leaping at Moriarty’s comment about James _coming back_. But she didn’t have time to wonder about that now. Tapping the name Galaxy News Radio into the notes on her Pipboy, she skimmed the last bit of the entry, reading about what was, apparently, her first visit to Moriarty’s Saloon, before she was old enough to remember. She wondered if she should feel some revulsion at having slept with a man who was old enough to be her father, and someone who was a one-man mob to boot.

Shrugging off the thoughts, Faith logged out of the machine. As she rose from the chair, a shadow moved into the doorway, and her stomach dropped. The door to the outside was _locked_. She couldn't slip out before they saw her. There was nowhere to hide.

“ _Faith_?” Gob's strange, raspy whisper filtered through the dark as he moved into the room. “What are you doing, kid?”

“I— _oh_ ,” she started and watched Gob's eyes take in her backpack leaning against the back door, the boots next to them, her bare feet, the slowly turning chair and the monitor glowing behind her. “Fuck, Gob. I'm sorry. I _had_ to. I couldn't trust him to give me the information, even after….” She trailed off. The look on Gob's face told her he already knew what had gone on between her and his boss. “I had to get it for myself.”

Gob leveled a long look at her and for a heart stopping moment she expected him to call for Moriarty, but he just sighed and bowed his head. He took a deep breath, his body giving a little shudder, shook his head and said, “C'mon, kid.”

Shoving something in his pocket, Gob unlocked the storage room door, led her through the town, to the outside of the gates where a small camp had been set up, three lumpy bedrolls spread around a fire and one of those two headed cows nearby, saddled with small crates and bags.    
  
“Hey, Crow,” Gob said.

One of the lumps inside a bedroll turned, a dark head of hair poked out, followed by a set of sleepy eyes, a long nose, a mouth that looked friendly even though its owner was being woken up at 3 in the morning and a voice, Faith thought, that was way too soft and musical to exist in the Wasteland. “What's happening, Gob?”  
  
“I need to call in that favor.”

  ** _#~#~#_**

It took less than 15 minutes for Crow to wake the rest of his caravan and have everything packed and put away for their journey down to Rivet City. They would first take her to Farragut West Metro, which was, Gob explained, the quickest way to get to Galaxy News Radio.

She was busy putting in the coordinates for the radio station when Gob came up behind her, a box tucked under his arm and something else in his hands. “You'll need some better supplies,” Gob said, placing a cloth wrapped parcel in her hands and unwrapping it to reveal a .44 magnum revolver. He handed her a box of ammo. “It ain't loaded yet.”  
  
“I don't—Gob, I can't afford—”  
  
The ghoul shook his head, raised his hand. “It's taken care of. Crow gave me a bit of a discount, and threw in a combat knife and a box of Salisbury steak,” Gob finished, taking the box and knife from beneath his arm. Faith took them both gingerly, meeting Gob's eyes. He looked sad.  
  
She put the box of food in her pack, unloaded and tucked her10 mil in alongside it. She carefully loaded ammo into the .44 and slid it into the holster on her belt. The combat knife she tucked into the other side of her belt. It wasn't meant to hold a knife, but it would work until she found or made something better.   
  
“Thank you,” she said.  
  
“No thanks needed, just….” He pulled something out of his pocket. A folded envelope that felt soft and heavy in her hands. “Look kid, I— You'll no doubt be getting close to downtown DC at some point. If you stumble across a place called Underworld, do me a favor and give this letter to Carol, would you? It's looking like it's going to be a while longer before I'm able to get down there myself.”

“Of course,” she said, not liking the resignation that laced his voice. “I'll make this up to you. I swear.”

“Just keep yourself alive, okay, kid?” Gob smiled at her, sweet and lopsided, the left corner of his mouth pulling up. Then he turned and walked back into Megaton, leaving her standing  in the early morning hush, the only sounds that of the caravan brahmin lowing behind her, the grumbles of the caravan guards as they cursed the early hour. Then Crow put his hand on her back and in that melodic voice told her they should get moving.  
  
Faith tucked Gob's letter carefully into her pack, shouldered it and followed the caravan East.


End file.
